OK ... just wanting to make sure I do this EXACTLY right ... what is meant in the ultimate fix instructions by 16 MB "Thing" .... does that mean the player in recovery model will mount a 16 mb folder in which to put a text file??

Is there an OS that's preferred for doing this .... I.E. Will Linux perform the same way as windows through this process??

I have a friends 8 gig model that i'm going to fix so I'm not a 100% on whats wong ...I don't have it yet ... but from what I'm told ... it seems to be in need of new firmware... I think it may just need that or there is corrupted sectors on the flash .... in that case will it work to do an "fsck" on the player in normal mount mode??

Wait to get the player in your hand to find out if it boots and you only have to deal with corrupted files or if it's actually bricked. There is no reason for the ultimate fix if it's not, you can just connect in msc mode, drop in new fw to the root, disconnect and let it alone while it updates fw. BTW the 16MB is a partition were the fw resides.